Mynock
:"I feel like I've been gone a long time." :—''Mynock'' John Mynock Konteego was the infamous outlaw hero and partner-in-crime to the former Telosian bounty hunter, Kestrel. Initially an accountant unhappy with his job and unknowingly married to a chubby Imperial spy, he cut a path through the galactic underworld upon deciding to leave his old life behind on Nar Shaddaa. Biography Early life Mynock was born on Ord Mantell, though he prefers not to talk about his past. He lead the boring job of a wage slave, an accountant at a local firm operating on Nar Shaddaa. He was the husband of an undercover Imperial agent, though the marriage papers themselves were a forgery. Plucky and filled with a lot of heart, John Konteego often dreamt about leaving it all behind — and one fateful night after one too many drinks at Booze Girls, the local cantina, he finally did. The Adventure Begins After escaping a stale marriage to Jane Mentiroso, he partnered up with Trooh Perr, a burnt-out Republic customs officer working on the docks of Nar Shaddaa's Corellian sector. Together, they seized control of the ship, the Centennial Turkey, and took flight to Tatooine with the promise of loot and credits on the horizon. While on the planet's surface, the pair were joined by Kestrel, a bounty hunter fleeing from the Empire after earning their ire on Korriban. Managing to upset the local Hutt cartel, Mynock's recklessness cost him his eye as the trio made their escape off-planet. Holocron of Fate Mynock eventually made his way to Coruscant, whereupon he found the fourth and final member of what was becoming a tight and contentious crew, barely tolerant of each other — the young Jedi Knight, Jan Itór. With his help, Mynock entered the Jedi Archives and stole a holocron of immense power and untapped potential, a holocron whose true nature remained hidden to even the archivists who guarded it. This holocron earned Mynock the attention of a Sith Lord determined to claim it for his own ends, Lord Inventorus — the man that Mynock's Gang would know as Steve. Hot on their trail, Mynock was forced to sacrifice his own life to give the rest of his crewmates the time to escape. The Outlaw Heroes Believed to have perished alongside the Turkey, Kestrel took lead of the group in Mynock's absence. On board a new ship, and accompanied by Kestrel's ship droid, Columbo, his gang caught the attention of both the Empire and the Republic as the holocron ultimately fell to Steve's hands, prompting the expulsion of Jan from the Jedi Order. Unbeknownst to all but his captor, Mynock woke up in Steve's facility — medically stable; his eye rebuilt and cybernetically enhanced. The Sith Lord offered him a proposal: to join his plan of using the holocron's powers to end inequality tearing away at Imperial society with the end goal of sparking peace for the galaxy. The holocron had the potential of aggressively awakening the Force within all living beings, but the science was still in its rough stages and the results were a horrific affront to life. Deeming the Sith Lord crazed beyond hope, Mynock took the nearby scalpel and tore his new eye out in protest as he made his escape to Ilum. The Dark Science During his escape from the facility, he met and befriended Galt, a lab patient who came out looking better than most, with his mind and memories still intact. However, the two parted ways and would not meet again until a fated reunion on Kestrel's ship. With a vendetta against Steve, and a clear goal in mind, Mynock journeyed to refugee town of Mos Pela on Tatooine to shut down the Sith Lord's operation of covertly turning its populace into Force mutants. Reuniting with his old crew, who were following up leads on the planet at the time was just an added bonus. It was during his time he started receiving visions of a woman called Avis who guided him towards ending Steve's perversion of the Force. After enduring a harrowing trek across the dunes, Mynock found himself in front of the palace of the Butcher, the crime lord whose cartel cost Mynock his eye, and the Hutt who was moving Steve's obelisks into the town for a hefty pay. Ultimately, the Butcher was defeated and Mynock escaped an untimely demise as one thing was left undone — boarding the ship of his former partners. Met by Columbo and deemed an intruder, Mynock left the droid scrapped and scarred as he finally came face to face with a much larger posse than the adventure initially began with: his ex-wife, Jane, and Galt were now a part of the rabble. With only Kestrel taking the threat Steve posed seriously, the duo mustered a rousing speech to get the others on board with a plan that would burn his entire operation down, reclaim the holocron Steve stole and give the crew a much sought-after payback. Flight of the Mynock Mynock, Kestrel and Columbo split up from the rest of the crew and boarded the salvaged Centennial Turkey as they pieced together evidence of where Steve's final base resided, with the facilities on Ilum and Tatooine finally destroyed. Columbo's analysis ended up leading them to the planet of Taris, a cemetery world of toxic swamps and ancient wreckage after it endured planetary bombardment from the Sith several centuries prior. While the others scattered across the galaxy in search of allies, Mynock and Kestrel landed on the planet below and after fighting through the local rakghouls, made their way into the bowels of Steve's depraved facility. After facing him via holographic transmission, Mynock came to realize what Steve's endgame was — using the holocron as a conduit, he would harness the powers of the Force with a space station and distribute his cure on a galactic scale. Calling off a premature assault on Steve's space station, the group regrouped and planned to reach out to both the Republic and the Empire to send aid in putting a swift end to the Sith Lord's crazed plan, however, each side had an agenda of its own. This started a course of events that would eventually pit the two outlaws against everyone else when in the battle on the Peace Star above Hoth, Mynock shot the holocron and deprived the Republic and the Sith from using its powers for their own ends once Steve's operation was shut down. Confronting Steve for the final time, but not before causing the station to release its accumulated energy, Mynock was able to convince the Sith Lord to snap out of his madness as the station plummeted towards the surface below. A Fluke of Nature With an underworld on the hunt for Mynock and Kestrel following their actions aboard the Peace Star, the new trio laid low on the frozen wastes of Hoth, hoping to evade the bounties that the Republic and Empire had placed upon them. A young bounty hunter named William Hill, known in the underworld as The Fluke, eventually managed to locate their trail only to join their side in an unexpected turn of events. Using his knowledge of his employers, the four of them made it to Nar Shaddaa and raided the vaults of Grabba the Hutt, the crime lord who sponsored the bounty and served as the middleman and money holder for the Republic and the Empire. During the raid, Grabba lost his eye to Mynock, but the outlaws did not go unscathed, as Mynock was forced to leave his ship behind. The Fallen Knights A decade passed since the destruction of the Peace Star, and while the bounties still remained, no sane bounty hunter continued the hunt ever since news of their raid broke out. During those years, Mynock, Kestrel and Steve were following up on another holocron of a similar nature to the first, using Steve's abandoned Ilum facility as their base of operations. Neither the one found on Dantooine or on Dxun was a match, but their options were still far from exhausted. Legacy of the Force Their latest lead on the holocron's location came from Kestrel, who found a possible match on the Jedi pilgrim world of Jedha. Behind the Scenes :"The first few jokes I made with a character really defined who they were. Mynock was a bumbling wannabe badass, as he immediately picked a barfight and lost." :—''Lankist.'' Mynock was the first protagonist ever made for the comic. He was the character that started it all. Lankist's initial conception of the adventure included a Smuggler, a Trooper and a Jedi. One of the founding merits of the comic was his insistence to find out the quirks and details of a character on-the-fly with the audience, a lesson Alamact took to heart when working on the sequel. Trivia *Mynock possibly inspired the creation of Nico Okarr. *His iconic hat was lost during the interim between the two adventures only to be picked up by Columbo, who has a hostile relationship with the former. *One of the original comic's most popular theories involved Avis being a personal manifestation of the will of the Force guiding non-Force sensitives like Mynock. *Mynock's refrigerator joke to Steve in Act I's flashback chapter is a callback to Lankist's Mass Effect adventure where Shepard does much the same with Harbinger. Appearances *''Men of Conviction'' *''Big Iron On His Hip'' *''Beat Riders''